How many calories should I eat a day? If you are asking yourself this question then you know the importance of calorie intake relating to weight loss, weight gain and your health in general.
However, there is no defining number of calories per day that we should all follow, the amount you should eat will depend on your gender, age, height, weight, amount of exercise you do and your goal (weight loss, weight gain, balanced diet).
Calculating how many calories I should eat a day?
Calculating your needed calorie intake is actually very easy, it will only take a few minutes of your time and it will have a very good impact on your health if you use the calculations wisely. Unfortunately, this is where many people stop, because they think It is hard. Well it isn’t!
Step 1. We need to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate(BMR)
The Basal Metabolic Rate is the rate at which your body burns calories during rest, for example when you are sitting, sleeping etc. To calculate this all you need to do is some simple maths and you only need to know your age, weight and height.
Here is how it should be calculated for women:
Women: BMR = 655 + (4.7 x your height in inches)+ (4.35 x your weight in lbs) – (4.7 x your age in years)
Metric
Women: BMR = 655 + (1.8 x your height in cm) + (9.6 x your weight in kgs) – (4.7 x your age in years)
Here is how it should be calculated for men:
For U.S
BMR = 66 ++ (12.7 x your height in inches) + (6.23 x your weight in pounds) – (6.8 x your age in years)
For Metric
BMR = 66 + (5 x your height in cm) + (13.7 x your weight in kgs) – (6.8 x your age in years)
Step 2. Calculate your Active Metabolic Rate (AMR)
The Active metabolic rate is the amount of calories your body burns during activity, obviously this is going to depend on the amount of exercise you do. Here is how you calculate it using the BMR.
For both men & women:
No or very little exercise: AMR will equal
Light exercise: AMR will equal BMR x 1.375
Moderate exercise: AMR will equal BMR x 1.55
Difficult exercise: AMR will equal BMR x 1.725
Extremely difficult exercise: AMR will equal BMR x 1.9
Once you have the numbers
After calculating how many calories I should eat a day my next step would be to adjust my diet accordingly. Find out the calorie count of the foods you eat and then make yourself a diet plan. I suggest spending a few bucks to buy a proper diet and exercise program like this one here. Although something like this can seem somewhat daunting at the start, it is in fact something which will become part of your routine. Then it will be easier and easier to do, best of all you will reach your weight loss/weight gain/health goals.